Love one another as I have loved you

SSJE

One of the hazards of living closely together, as we brothers do in a monastery, is that if one brother catches a cold or flu or Covid, it spreads very quickly, along the corridors, up the stairs, and soon, one by one, most of us get infected. But it is not just physical illnesses that can infect us. We get infected by each other’s moods and feelings. You probably know that in your own lives. Maybe one day you get out of bed on the wrong side, you’re tired and in a bad mood, and the first thing you do is pass it on. So you are rude to someone in your family, and they get annoyed with the first person they meet, and they pass it on. Your bad mood has spread, rather like ripples, after throwing a stone into a pool of water. The writer William Golding said, ‘People cannot move without hurting each other.’

But if you really want to hurt somebody, it’s much more effective to get together with others – to gang up. If you were ever in a gang at school, or the victim of one, you will know that gangs thrive on the feeling of power, with passwords and jargon and particular clothing to define their identity. The tragedy is that some people never grow out of it. During the first three years after I was ordained, I spent a lot of my ministry working in Belfast, Northern Ireland, during the Troubles. I helped run summer camps, bringing together Catholic and Protestant children from inner city Belfast. I encountered gang warfare in a horrible way. In the city it was terrifying to see the lines drawn up. Cross that street and you are in the Protestant Shankill. Cross that one and you are in the Republican Falls. Their gangs would roam the streets looking for strangers, stopping them and trying to find out which side they were on. There was the story, told with wry Belfast humor of the Indian man who was stopped by a gang and asked whether he was a catholic of a protestant, and he said, ‘I’m a Hindu.’ Yes, they said, but are you a catholic Hindu or a protestant Hindu?’ The greatest deprivation though was that children from either side of the divide never met each other. They attended different schools, different sports centers, different shops, different clubs, different churches. Each side knew just enough about the other to hate them, to fear them, to demonize them. It’s there that I first heard those words which have haunted me ever since, ‘The first casualty in any conflict is truth’. Memories of that deeply divided and violent city continue to disturb me, not least because they raise red flags in my soul for what is happening in our nation today.

Since my days in Belfast, there have been over the decades a tragic litany of such ethnic, religious and political hatred and violence. Today, our hearts are full of sadness and pain as we see pictures of the continued horrors enacted in Ukraine and Gaza. How could people who were living side by side, suddenly turn to such communal bloodletting? How could people who only a week before, were waving palms and shouting ‘Hosanna’ suddenly gang up against Jesus? Jealousy? Fear? Soon the word spread like an epidemic, soon their blood lust was roused, and they were shouting, ‘Crucify him!’ What about Jesus’ ‘gang’, his disciples? “We’ll fight back!” And in the garden one of them got out a knife and cut off a slave’s right ear. ‘NO! NO!’ That’s what Jesus says. ‘NO!’ Don’t do that. This is where it stops, with me. This terrible destructive cycle or revenge and retribution. I refuse to pass on the violence, the hatred, the sin. It stops here, in my body. I hate no person. I will not hit you back. ‘I give you a new commandment. Love one another as I have loved you.’ …even unto death upon the Cross.

‘On the night before he died for us, THIS night, our Lord Jesus Christ took bread.’ On this holy night we take bread and do this in remembrance of him. Jesus longed for this night. He tells his disciples in Luke’s account, ‘I have longed to eat the Passover with you before I suffer.’ He longed to share this last meal with them because he loved them. Even though that evening one of them was going to betray him he loved them. Even though that evening, one of them in anger and hatred would attack a man with a knife he loved them. Even though having spent years in his company, they were still consumed with pride and petty jealousies, he loved them. Luke, in his Gospel tells us that even at the most sacred moment after Jesus had fed them with the bread and wine, the disciples immediately start arguing again; ‘as to which of them was to be regarded as the greatest!’ In spite of this he still loved them and he loved them to the end.’

And Jesus longs to share this Passover with you and me tonight. For despite our brokenness, our unwillingness to forgive, our stored-up resentments, our anger, our pride, our petty jealousies, Jesus loves us. On this night, before he died for us, Jesus gives us a new commandment: ‘Love one another as I have loved you.’

But he doesn’t just say the words, he shows us; shows us how to love in this new, radical way. Perhaps in response to the disciples arguing about who was the greatest, John in his Gospel tells us that he got up from table, took off his outer robe, tied a towel around him and washed his disciples’ feet. Those who had just been arguing about who was to be the greatest, are humbled by the sight of their Lord kneeling before them. He doesn’t just say the words, he shows us. The next day -tomorrow, he will show us to the uttermost how much he loves us – his robe is again taken off, this time by the soldiers. They strip him, and beat him, and mock him, and he is lifted high upon the Cross. Even now in agony and desolation, he refused to hit back, to retaliate, to pass on the contagion of evil and sin. He took it all upon himself. Instead of a curse, he uttered gracious words of love: ‘Father forgive them for they know not what they do.’

Tonight, each one of us will be invited to have our feet washed, and to wash the feet of another. And tonight, each one of us will be invited to receive our Lord in the sacrament of bread and wine. Both of these, the foot washing and the giving of bread and wine, are powerful signs – enacted by Jesus on this night, the eve of his crucifixion.

Both these signs have the power to change us, to convert us, to give us the gift of that new, radical self-giving love and to help us pass it on to others. When you are having your feet washed, see Jesus kneeling at your feet, in divine humility, and ask him to forgive your sinful pride. When you kneel to wash the feet of another, ask for grace, that you may live your life in this way, in self-giving service to others.

When you receive the body and blood of Jesus, see the broken body and shed blood of Jesus hanging on the Cross for you, uttering those astonishing words of love and forgiveness – love so amazing, so divine.

Ask God to take away the hatred and violence and bitterness that can so easily infect our hearts. Ask for forgiveness and grace to forgive those who have hurt you.

On this Holy Thursday may God’s love truly change us tonight. Resolve not to pass on anger, resentment, bitterness to others. It stops with me. Instead, resolve to pass on love, forgiveness, hope. That all may, through us, be drawn to and experience God’s love, love so amazing so divine, demands my soul, my life, my all.’